The present invention relates to a camera-equipped recording/reproducing apparatus. Particularly, this invention relates to a camera-equipped recording/reproducing apparatus equipped with a liquid crystal monitor.
Known camera-equipped video tape recorders (VTR) or camcorders are equipped with a VTR as a recording/reproducing apparatus provided as almost parallel to a camera unit in a camera-lens optical-axis direction.
More advanced camera-equipped VTRs are equipped with a liquid crystal monitor built in a grip for supporting a VTR body. The grip is rotatable so that users can take images at an appropriate wrist position. Such a camera-equipped VTR is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-226871 (1995).
In these known camera-equipped VTRs, however, an appropriate wrist angle does not necessarily match an observing angle at which a user views an object via a liquid crystal monitor, within several photographing angles including a normal photographing angle. Moreover, users suffer from wrist ache even at a normal photographing angle, so that long photographing is a hard works. In addition, it is impossible in the known camera-equipped VTRs to photograph the user himself or herself while he or she is doing monitoring via a liquid crystal monitor.
Furthermore, a lens assembly and a heavy VTR are arranged in parallel in the optical axis direction in the known camera-equipped VTRs. This results in that the center of gravity of a heavy VTR body is far from the user's wrist while he or she is holding a grip. Such a far center of gravity causes a large rotational moment applied to the user's wrist so that he or she is easily tired. It is thus hard for the user to hold the camera-equipped VTR for a long time.
The lens assembly and VTR may be arranged in series so that the center of gravity of the VTR body and the grip or user's wrist are close to each other in the direction of optical axis to lighten a rotational moment. Such arrangement, however, results in that the grip is located near the end section of the VTR body with difficulty in handling.
The grip may be located at almost the center of the VTR body. This arrangement, however, results in a large rotational moment about the axis lying in right and left directions with respect to the optical axis, thus long photographing is hard.